Dreamcast-Talk.com

Ian Micheal wrote:Now this is old like end of 1999
I wish I could tell
you the whole sordid story about the booter code, but I can't.
I've been warned, so I'm not talking. All you need to know
is that Sega can close the door on the booter code any time
they want, forcing the pirates to actually "crack" such titles

Is this your personal comment or from another source?
If it is from you personally...

Is this because there was research done in the homebrew community to figure out the booter code?

Either way can you delve into it a bit further.
Redact anything that you need to.

Just try to make it not heavily redacted like this:

████ip.bin████booter code████████████and██████katana



If you can't that is fine too.

dark wrote:
I'd like to know how people in the west even discovered that the MIL CD booting functionality existed. I don't recall Sega ever publicizing it as a selling point, and obviously retail MIL CDs were extremely rare even in Japan.

That's one thing I'd love to find out as well. I remember really well that the datel cdx demo was the first ever disc released to the public using the milcd format exploit. Then soon after it came the utopia boot disc.

What is the heartbreak diaries you guys are talking about?

colgate wrote:What is the heartbreak diaries you guys are talking about?

Heartbreak Diary MIL-CD
https://segaretro.org/Heartbreak_Diary

Extracted the heartbreak diary MIL-CD ip.bin and the bleem beta ip.bin compared them both.
This shows where the custom code starts.

Just want to thank everyone for the amazing info - I can't say I ever looked too deeply into the origins of how the DC was cracked (well, okay, exploited!)

It does make you wonder why Sega didn't just eliminate the Mil-CD option right at the start? As has been pointed out already, it would have put it up there with the Saturn and PSX/PS2 in terms of protection/difficulty modding. Such a strange choice to allow it - are we to assume they just didn't know and it was overlooked right from the start? (although the guide on how it works in an official Sega SDK (if I read that part right?) does suggest otherwise - or certainly nobody was giving it much thought.

Still, same question as before - is that picture of Utopia somewhere in the reindeer boot disc - or is it just an urban legend at this point? I'm leaning towards the latter given that nobody has posted it yet (and honestly, how dumb would they have to be to include a group photo on their highly illegal boot disc? I mean, there's stupid... and then there's really, really, stupid...) I still say it was all (probably) smoke and mirrors to hide groups and identities - and most of my fingers are pointing at a faction within Kalisto. They had the coders/crackers already well established from the PSX scene previously. Paradox was doing a lot then, but not on the Dreamcast. Hooligans were famous for ripping off the Chinese r18 release crew but little 'original' product - so it just leaves Kalisto as the obvious suspects. Ah... rabbit holes... can't live with em'...

you would have to extract the image from the bin file.

utopia renamed the file extension of the .bin to .txt (change .txt to .bin)
you also need to descramble the bin after you change it from .txt to .bin
then to extract the image you would need to disassemble the bin. (do some asm magic)

it would be easier to use the utopia boot disk and load a game.
then take a screenshot.

i remember it switching from the reindeer to another image after it starts to load game.
as ian said earlier in the thread, once utopia boot disk finds 0gdtex.pvr

---

can't live without 'em..

bingobongo, i like the way you think.
keep in mind ppl will view you as crazy for coming up with theories.
i did the same when trying to figure out who might have leaked the bleem beta.
either way its all theory, who gives a damn what ppl think about you?

one thing to note is that some ppl in the dc community take things too damn serious.
if you steer away from what the majority believes then they like to mock you for it.
its still a very small group of people that i'm referring to. (not you)
oh well..

most conspiracies that i have researched turned out to be true.
so there is always that.

Wow thats some very awesome information there Ian Micheal and dark!
Thank you so much for this!

So if I understand correctly the IP.BIN bootloader for the MIL-CD format was altered by adding the two extra functions to the second bootstrap.

Because the Dreamcast will scramble-load the executable (1ST_READ.BIN), one function will descramble to its original format.
Then it will attempt to reset the GD-ROM drive making the whole data-track accessible for the game (something to do with HOLLY?)

A few questions:
1. Would it be possible to reverse scramble the executable up front (before burning to the disc)?
So when the bios scramble-loads the executable should already be in its original (unscrambled) format in memory.
Then you'd only need the GD-ROM reset function right?
I believe this is done for KOS applications.

2. What's the difference with homebrew? (E.g. non-katana stuff) ?
Does the bios only lock the disc drive when it detects a Katana binary?
Because when using original MIL-CD format, you need to access more files right? Like videos and such.

3. Is there any C or C++ code as a example on how the GD-ROM reset function works?

Thanks in advance

SMiTH wrote: Is this your personal comment or from another source?
If it is from you personally...

It is from this ancient (like from 2001) faq on then popular dreamcast homebrew website boob. http://www.boob.co.uk/docs/faq.htm

dark wrote:

SMiTH wrote: Is this your personal comment or from another source?
If it is from you personally...

It is from this ancient (like from 2001) faq on then popular dreamcast homebrew website boob. http://www.boob.co.uk/docs/faq.htm

It is i was also part of that site back then..

As was I Ian, as was I Though I was way more active at dcemulation at the time. Can't be too many of us 20+ year veterans left posting on forums these days.

Insert relevant meme -

dark wrote:As was I Ian, as was I Though I was way more active at dcemulation at the time. Can't be too many of us 20+ year veterans left posting on forums these days.

Insert relevant meme -

I doubt it lol..

Most people not even born lol..